A New Call to Peacemaking, and a New Call for Peacemakers

In 1978, members of the three historic “peace
churches” — Brethren, Mennonites, and Quakers — held a series of regional
conferences and then a national one under the “New Call to Peacemaking” banner.

Among the more newsworthy things to come out of the national conference was a
call to renew and strengthen the tradition of war tax resistance (though the
conferences covered a larger range of issues than this). The findings of the
national conference included these:

We urge the development of support groups within congregations and meetings
for those individuals who are working at peace issues such as war tax
resistance, simple lifestyles, and nonviolent action.

We call upon members of the Historic Peace Churches seriously to consider
refusal to pay the military portion of their federal taxes, as a response to
Christ’s call to radical discipleship.

We challenge ourselves and also our congregations and meetings to uphold war
tax resisters with spiritual, legal, and material support.

We call on our church and conference agencies to enter into dialogue with
employees who ask, for reasons of moral conviction, that their taxes not be
withheld.

We suggest that alternative “tax” payments be channeled into a peace fund
initiated by the New Call to Peacemaking or into existing peace funds of
constituent groups.

We call on our denominations, congregations, and meetings to give high
priority to the study of war tax resistance in our own circles and beyond.

In keeping with our past support of alternative service provisions for
conscientious objectors to the draft, we urge support for congressional
enactment of a World Peace Tax Fund as an alternative to compulsory financial
support of war and preparation for war.

Wealth and violence go together — a root of war often overlooked and often
denied. Wealth depends on the violence of oppression for its earnings. And
once gained, wealth needs the threatened violence of armies to protect its
profits.

Since most of us share in the wealth of the western world, we’re caught in
this trap. “Is it right to refuse to go to war or to complain to
Congresspersons about the military budget or to refuse to pay the military
portion of the income tax,” LeRoy Friesen asked the California New Call to
Peacemaking meeting in 1978, “when it is the
protection of the standard of living which you and I share which makes such an
army necessary?”

[T]he New Call to Peacemaking has called on its members seriously to consider
refusal to pay the military portion of their federal taxes. Such action would
be a response to Christ’s call to radical discipleship. Those responding in
this way would soon find that in confronting a powerful government that has
widespread support, they need congregations and meetings to uphold them in
spiritual, emotional, legal, and material ways.

The Evangelism of Tax Resistance

The call to resist paying taxes that support war and preparations for war
remind us that peace and justice go together. And tax resistance is also an
opportunity for evangelism as well as a proclamation that Christ is Lord of
all creation. “It is for this reason that the question of tax resistance has
become an important symbol,” says Dale W. Brown. “For it involves our pocket
books, raises questions of support for the church, and defines the peace
witness in broader terms than what our seventeen or eighteen year old youth do
in response to the coercive power of the state.” Does tax resistance express
love for the poor and oppressed? Does it make a clear statement about
obedience to God? Is tax resistance a hindrance to evangelism or a support to
it?

Stem the Growth of Militarism

One of the current concerns about militarism relates to the large amount of
money being spent on military budgets. Efforts need to be made to redirect the
use of these resources into programs that meet human needs. Tax resistance is
one strategy receiving growing support. “We call on our denominations,
congregations, and meetings to give high priority to the study of war tax
resistance in our own circles and beyond,” said the New Call to Peacemaking at
its national meeting in 1978. Christians who take
tax resistance seriously express condemnation of the world arms race. “For the
foreseeable future,” says John K. Stoner, “war tax resistance will be an
action that is taken at some cost to the individual or the church institution
with no assured compensation except the knowledge that it is the right thing
to do.” Is tax resistance an expression of servanthood? Is it a way to
identify with the cause of the poor? How can we demonstrate the urgency of our
concern and the dedication of Christian peacemakers to stemming the growth of
militarism?

Revolution in the World Peace Tax Fund

Other persons support the World Peace Tax Fund as an alternative to compulsory
support of war and preparation for war. This proposal, yet to be made into
law, would allow concerned persons to designate their tax money for peaceful
use rather than for war. Thus, they would register a conscientious objection
to the financing of war in much the same way that objectors to the draft
register a protest against military service. The World Peace Tax Fund appeals
to those concerned for proper ways to make their concerns known. If enacted,
and if large groups of people voted for peace with their tax money, it could
have a revolutionary and radical impact. What are the prospects of the World
Peace Tax Fund being seriously considered by the United States Congress? Does
its passage not wait until a larger proportion of the population has engaged
in war tax resistance assuring that they will not be turned back by penalties
and even imprisonment?

[W]hat can we do that will have immediate impact? Tax resistance has important
meaning for peacemakers and the powers they confront. “We call upon members of
the historic peace churches seriously to consider refusal to pay the military
portion of their federal taxes,” said the national meeting of the New Call to
Peacemaking in 1978, “as a response to Christ’s
call to radical discipleship.”

The Pittsburgh meeting of the New Call to Peacemaking suggested a further
step. “The peace churches should consider refusing to withhold income taxes
from their employees for ultimate payment to government. This should be done
in a manner to lay the responsibility upon the churches and not the individual
employees.”

Civil Disobedience as Divine Obedience

Tax refusal as one form of protest to militarism is one of a number of ways
available to peacemakers to show that their supreme loyalty is to the Risen
Lord. For them, it is also a tool to change the policies of a warmaking
government. “War tax resistance,” says John K. Stoner, “might just be a cloud
the size of a man’s hand announcing to the nations that the reign of God is
coming near.” Though even in the peace churches, tax refusal is sometimes
viewed with suspicion, it is receiving wider acceptance and understanding. “As
the church has grown in its discernment of what the Bible teaches about
slavery and the role of women,” says Stoner, “so it must grow in its
discernment of what the Bible teaches about the place and authority of
governments and the payment of taxes.” For through tax refusal, the peacemaker
makes a statement of faith. “War tax resistance means accepting the discipline
of submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in the nitty-gritty of history,”
says Stoner. “Call it civil disobedience if you wish, but recognize that in
reality it is divine obedience. It is a matter of yielding to a higher
sovereignty.” Is civil disobedience the method of last resort, the action
taken when no other ways are open? Would you advise draft resistance for young
men and women facing conscription? Why? Or, why not?

We have been inconsistent in praying for peace while continuing to pay for
war. Our contributions to the violence of the world are obvious at many
places. Our complicity with the affluent lifestyle of life all around us is
one place of compromise. Another failure of integrity has been in our willing
payment of taxes which support the war-making power of our country.

“It is, at the root, a simple question of integrity,” says John K. Stoner. “We
are praying for peace and paying for war. Setting euphemisms aside, the
billions of dollars conscripted by governments for military spending are war
taxes, and Christians are paying those taxes. Our bluff has been called.” He
notes that the church has not tried tax resistance and found it ineffective.
It has rather found it difficult and left it untried.

If we step back a bit and view ourselves, we will often see how much we are
like those we want to change. The reasons generally given for not taking such
radical action as tax resistance are much like those excuses given by German
Christians who refused to resist the excesses of Nazism. “It was always a
matter of waiting for some new, more obvious proof that the regime was evil,
of believing explanations of what was happening when such explanations were
couched in religious or semi-religious language,” says Stoner, “of expecting
some person in a position of authority to make the break first and of hoping
that right would ultimately prevail without requiring any personal sacrifice
beyond the ordinary.”

The lesson from history is not an easy one to learn. Says Stoner, “We expect
more from others than we do of ourselves.”

In 2015 a law went into effect ordering the State
Department to revoke passports from and deny passports to anyone if the
IRS tells
them that person has a significant tax debt (defined now as a debt greater than
$51,000, I believe), if that debt isn’t being resolved or disputed through legal channels. That law also requires the
IRS to
notify the State Department of any such taxpayers. It’s taken them a long time
to start coming into compliance with this law, but they said they would be
starting earlier this year. I have yet to hear of any examples of tax resisters
being targeted by this, however.

I’ve had a tax debt greater than than the trigger amount for some time now. In
addition, the
IRS filed
a tax lien against me earlier this year for a bit over that
amount.*

So I was a little nervous when I traveled to South America on vacation
last month. But I didn’t have any passport
trouble coming or going.

Acting on a hunch that the government might be quicker to deny passports than
to revoke passports they’ve already issued, I decided to try to apply for a
renewed passport immediately upon my return, even though my existing passport
still had a few years to go before it was to expire. I thought maybe I could
get a new one before they succeeded in rolling out their process.

Long story short: today my new passport came
in the mail. So from the looks of it, they still aren’t enforcing this law with
much rigor.

* Between the time the
IRS
filed the tax lien and the time I applied for the renewed passport, one of the
years of tax “delinquency” on the lien became unenforceable because it passed
the ten-year statute of limitations. That may have dropped the amount still
enforceable via the lien below $51,000, though my total tax debt remained
higher (for obscure reasons, the lien did not include the total amount of tax
debt the
IRS is
pursuing me for). I’m not sure whether that’s relevant, but it could be. I
kind of doubt it, because for that to have made a difference the government
would have to have been keeping a closer eye on things and reacting more
rapidly to things than the other evidence suggests they’re capable of.

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